Smokers ring out the warning

Streets outside offices will soon become much more noisy if the anti-smoking lobby get their latest suggestion passed into law.

"What we want to do," said Ashley Holden, "is to have smokers warn healthy people who happen to be walking near by. Our current proposal is that all smokers must ring a bell to provide this warning. It worked with lepers, it'll work again."

A trial of the new scheme is to be carried out in Nottingham, which has a higher percentage of smokers to non-smokers of any town in the country.

"I think it's a good idea," said Oswald Twistle, the one non-smoker that could be found. "It lets me know before I get round the corner if I'm going to be polluted."

Twistle has seen two slight flaws with the plan.

"I can barely hear myself think," he said. Twice. Just to make sure he'd said it. "Also, the kids love the idea of ringing bells, so they're all starting smoking. Although round here, they probably would have done anyway. But at six?"

Lunch time around Nottingham is heralded with a cacophony the likes of which has not been heard since all the London bells went off slightly out of sequence of one another.

"You can set your watch by it," said Bill Hopper, a local watch repairer. "That's really hit trade that has."

"You get used to it," said one smoker who preferred to remain nameless, but who's building entry badge identified her as Edwina Curry. "Unfortunately, it's beginning to affect my hearing, cos I've got a bit of a habit, and go through two bells a day. I find the clappers are not very strong."

Holden was taken to Nottingham to see, or rather hear, how her proposal is working out. Unfortunately, as she arrived around lunchtime, it was impossible to make out what her response to the plan was.

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